We will now follow with a list of the most suitable plants for your garden. To each plant a figure will be attached, to indicate the position it should occupy in your beds or borders. We will, for convenience sake, throw the various heights of the plants used into three classes—1, for the smallest plants, or those fitted for the front of the border; 2, for the medium-sized, or those suitable for the middle parts; and finally, 3, for the taller kinds, which require to be placed at the back, or near the back of the border. Doubtless you will make a point of growing the rose; that is deservedly everybody’s favourite. You may plant the rose either in the back part of your border, as a standard in the middle, as a dwarf bush, or on the front edge, pegged down close to the earth—not a bad way of growing it, by the way. But avoid the standard rose, if you can; it is ugly, awkward, and by no means so satisfactory as a rose “growing upon its own roots:” that means, a kind not grafted upon another, but quite on its own resources. Roses generally are grafted upon free growing common kinds, known as stocks. The most pleasing in the end, and by far the most satisfactory, are the roses upon their own roots. They make dwarf but long-lived and vigorous bushes—the very best things you can employ in the middle parts of your borders. If there be sufficient room, have a dozen kinds of roses, each different. Every spring, from deaths during the winter, and changes of one kind or another, you will have to look over your borders to fill up vacancies. It is best done about the end of May, when you may exactly see the state of the plants in the border, by filling up the majority of these vacancies with the better kinds of bedding plants, &c. By doing so you may enjoy both phases of gardening—the beautiful and interesting hardy flowers, to be presently named, and the brilliant and common flowers of the summer parterre, the pretty kinds of verbenas, the dwarf and neat lobelias, the variegated and other geraniums, and in fact, any kind of bedding plant that comes to hand.
Next, for the selection of the more valuable and more uncommon hardy flowers, leaving out all such as are difficult to obtain. Among all the flowers of spring, few are better known than some of the anemones—apennina (1), fulgens (1), coronata (1), sylvestris (1), and Honorine Iobert (2), are the very best. Among them we have the sweetest blue, the brightest scarlet, and the purest white. Of the columbines (Aquilegias), the best for your purposes are the common border varieties. They are mostly fitted for the central line of the border. Of the magnificent delphiniums, so richly blue, tall, and stately, there are many beautiful new kinds—so many that I need not enumerate them, but most nurserymen are pretty sure to have varieties of them. Being tall, they are mostly suited for the back, or nearly the back portions of the borders: if you have a central bed, they will also look very well towards the middle of it. By the way, the middle of such bed might well be devoted to a choice shrub or two, say a good rhododendron or kalmia—that is, if the soil would suit such. The peony is almost too big for such little gardens; but a plant or two may be ventured in some unimportant spot. The yellow bachelor’s button (Ranunculus acris, fl. pl. 2), is very pretty, and so exceedingly is Dielytra spectabilis (2). Baptisia australis (3). Coronilla varia (2). Galega officinalis alba (3). Lathyrus grandiflorus (3), a climbing plant, very fine for going up a low trellis. The white and red everlasting peas (3), also climbers. Orobus vernus (2). The perennial Lupin (3). Achillea ægyptiacum (2), A. aurea (1), A. Eupatorium (3), and A. millefolium roseum (2)—all fine and free. Of Michaelmas daisies (Asters), A. versicolor (1), elegans (3), turbinellus (2), Amellus (2), will be found highly beautiful. The Pyrethum in fine variety of beautiful colour and size: they have been raised of late years in great quantity by Mr. Salter of the Hammersmith nurseries, and are admirably suited to the middle line of borders, therefore the figure 2 will indicate their position to a T; their colour is rich and distinct in the extreme. The fine autumnal flowering Phlox (3) is also sold in great and beautiful variety, and should have a place in every good collection. Six or eight of the best kinds should be in the boy’s garden. Nearly every nurseryman supplies them cheap. In the harebell family (Campanulas) we will find some very fine, particularly pumila (1), carpatica (1), persicifolia (3), and P. alba (3), grandis (2), macrantha (3), rotundifolia (2). The fleur-de-lis, or Iris, has some beautiful varieties, of which the best are germanica (2), florentina (2), pallida (2), De Bergii (2), pumila (1). Tritoma grandis (3), and glaucescens (3), are noble things for the back of a border. The double wallflowers (2), the alpine wallflower (1) (Cheiranthus alpinus). The Potentillas (2). Veronica amethystina (2), and corymbosa (2). The Virginian tradescantia (2); the crimson loose-strife (3); Lythrum roseum superbum. I give you the hard names so that you may have the less difficulty in procuring the plants, for many may know them by their Latin name, who would not know them by their common one, and vice versâ. The American cowslip (1): this being a very chaste and pretty plant, have as much as you can of it. Salvia argentea (2). This plant has grand silvery leaves, and should be in every collection. Perennial candy tuft, 1 (Iberis). There are three kinds of this—corræafolia, saxatilis, and Garrexiana, all good, hardy, and beautiful. Arabis alpina (1); Aubrietia purpurea (1); Alyssum saxatile (1): all three very easy to grow, and very common. The beautiful little Hepaticas in various colours, blue, white, and red. You must secure a stock of these, above all things; they are among the prettiest of spring flowers, and will “set off” charmingly the front parts of your borders. There is a fine new kind of hepatica (H. angulosa), a noble kind, which you will also do well to obtain: give it a rather shady position in light soil. One or two tufts of the Christmas rose will be quite enough. When this begins to show its flowers, a few weeks before Christmas, you will do well to cover the plant with a hand-glass, leaving a little air at the top. This will prevent the flowers from being injured or hurt by rain; they will grow very much larger and whiter than if left exposed. Of Pentstemons (2), a good variety should be grown, especially if the soil be light and good, such as they delight in. Sedum fabaria (2), is a fine autumnal flowering plant, which must not be forgotten. Rudbeckia Newmannii (3), a very fine autumnal bloomer. Lithospermum fruticosum (1), a wonderfully pretty plant for the fronts of borders. Any kind of pink (1) that you can conveniently obtain, should be grown; they are sweet, hardy, neat, and, in a word, perfect for your purposes. They are considerably varied of late years, and highly useful for cutting for bouquets, &c. The front of the border is the best place for them. Immediately behind them, and scarcely so far back as the line of the second row, is the place for the carnations and picotees, which of course you will be sure to cultivate. There is nothing more beautiful in our gardens than many of these, so beautifully and richly coloured, and so delicately and exquisitely margined and striped. Linum narbonense (2), and Perenne album (2), noble kinds of hardy flax, are also good. The Œnothera tribe will furnish some beauty: notably the sweetly coloured Œ. acaulis (1), which opens its very large flowers in the evening, and keeps them open till nearly breakfast-time in the morning; the noble yellow macrocarpa; and the large evening primrose (Œ. Lamarkiana). Some dwarf tiny shrubs, that flower freely, will look beautiful in your border, and of such you cannot find one more beautiful than the early spring flowering heath, 1 (Erica carnea); it is a mass of handsome bloom, and very hardy and neat in habit. Other capital little shrubs are Daphne Cneorum, sweet and pretty—various dwarf kinds of native heaths, and Genista tinctoria (1), and sagittalis (1).
In addition to the above, it need hardly be added, that such universally esteemed plants as the lily of the valley (1), the primrose (1), and the polyanthus, should be well represented. Latterly there have been raised considerably varied kinds of primrose and polyanthus, and nothing can be more charming than mixed masses of such. From a packet of seed of each (ask for that of the ordinary mixed kinds), you may raise a considerable variety of beautiful kinds. Double daisies (1), too, in various colours, will be found very pretty in the spring, as will the numerous kinds of pansy (1), the gentian, and the forget-me-not. By the way, you must not forget some tufts of the common forget-me-not; it does very well as a border plant in all but the driest soils. At Trentham it is tastefully employed to form a margin round some pretty little gardens, dedicated to the various younger members of the family; and we have known people to be so full of gratitude to a departed dog, as to plant a ring of it round the little monumental slab which indicated his place of burial in the garden border. The various pretty and very dwarf kinds of saxifrage (1), and Sedum (1), too, you will find neat and distinct for the very front of your border, in which you will of course arrange the dwarfest plants.
One word more. It would be a pity to confine you to this or any other selection. The more varied your garden is, and the more distinct from that of your friends or neighbours, the better. The selection above given is as good as can be made, and may save you from getting a lot of ugly weeds in your garden, under the name of flowers; but in addition to these, you would do well to add any other pretty plant met with in your rambles, and which seems to you worthy of a place; while with friends who cultivate plants, you may exchange any that you have plenty of, for new varieties, or anything that you may fancy.
THE BOY’S FRUIT GARDEN.
There are few boys who cannot appreciate the virtues of a delicious melting pear or good apple; and our object in writing this paper is to tell them how to grow such in a comparatively short space of time. In old times, and, indeed, generally at present, people plant for those who come after them—“plant for their heirs,” in fact,—plant trees that will come into bearing in twelve years or so; and therefore some may say, why offer the boys such a far-off treat? But times change, and the system which produces the finest fruits now in our markets, happens to be exactly suited to the boy’s garden. Large and beautiful apples have been sold in Paris during the past spring for as much as three francs a-piece! These were in many, or in nearly all cases, grown upon little trees not more than a foot from the ground, and several of them not more than two or three years old! The French are the best growers of apples and pears in existence; and in France originated this dwarf method of growing them. The way they do it is as follows:—The best kinds of apples are grafted on a variety known as the Paradise, which induces a very dwarf growth and early fertility in the kinds grown upon it. We have seen these fruiting, this year, at two years of age, bearing fine fruit, much better than you see on trees developed to full size. They are grown in two ways, generally as cordons, and occasionally as little standards. The “cordon” is simply a single plant of apple, trained along a wire, supported about a foot from the ground. The little standard, or bush, is simply a diminutive Lilliputian kind of tree—just such as a boy would wish for in his garden. Not taller, if as tall as himself, he can shorten the shoots and gather the fruit with the greatest ease. The culture of these little trees is so simple that no boy need fail with them. A sunny spot should in the first instance be chosen, that is, if the young gardener can get it; and it is not often that he is allowed any but a bye nook of some kind or other; and no wonder, because hitherto boys’ gardens have simply been short-lived little exhibitions of untidiness, never yielding any result and very little beauty. But the young gardener who manages well his fairy part of fruit garden, will soon produce a little feature that any place might be proud of. Next, as to how to do it.
Very little ground is required. A small patch will afford space for a great number of little trees. A sunny open spot should be selected, where the trees will have all the advantages of sun and air to perfect their fruit, and render their shoots short, firm, and fertile, instead of sappy, gross, and useless. The soil should be of a slightly sandy or loamy nature, and not wet. If the ground be badly drained, and water lies in it much, it is almost hopeless to attempt fruit-growing, and the little gardener had in that case better turn his attention to something with which his soil and circumstances are likely to agree. One of the chief points in gardening is to choose the course most suited for your own soil, climate, and position. Thus the boy who lives in a great city, or the suburb of one, and who has to contend with the smoke and other evils incident to such, must pursue a very different plan of gardening to the boy who lives in the country, and has all the advantages of pure, sweet air for his plants. The best of all soils for our little fruit-trees, is one moderately sandy, yet not too loose and free, with what we may term a free bottom, that is, a sandy or other subsoil beneath, which will permit the water to pass off freely from the fertile or upper earth. But although this is the best soil, there are few others that we need reject—the worst, perhaps, being deep, stiff, soap-like clay. The best time to plant is in the autumn. Be sure you ask for the young apple-trees grafted on the “Paradise,” and the pears on the Quince stock. Both apples and pears may be grown as little standard trees or as cordons. In planting, do not put the roots deep, and spread them out even, forming first a rather firm and slightly convex surface, on which to place the little plant. This will be found to suit very much better than making a loose sort of hole into which to put the roots.
It should be borne in mind that when fruit-trees send their roots deep into rich or cold ground, they produce a lot of coarse, useless wood, barren of fruit, or nearly so. To counteract this tendency, what is called root-pruning has been resorted to. It simply consists in taking up the trees once in two years or so, and replanting them—at least, this is the way with our little trees. It may not be necessary on many soils; but where it is, it may be readily done during pleasant dry weather in autumn. The check given to the tree by the disturbance, causes it to form fertile buds and a stubby habit. It is well that the young amateur gardener should know this, so that he may apply a remedy if his fruit-trees grow too strong and prove barren. But generally they are fertile enough, and even sometimes produce a successful crop the first year after planting; the second year they should bear well. The accident of a severe frost while the trees are in flower, will of course always do mischief, and may ruin a crop; but all are liable to this, as well as our Lilliputians. It is best to plant the erect little trees in a small square—pears and apples separate, for uniformity sake—and to place the cordons around this, just as the French make a sort of edging of them in their gardens. Indeed, if the boy cannot obtain a neat little sunny square for his tiny trees, he will hardly fail to succeed in getting permission to arrange a few in cordon fashion along the edge of some border. It is simply done by either driving down a strong wooden post, or an iron one, so as to support a wire at about ten inches or a foot from the ground. Beneath that, the trees are to be planted, say at a distance of six or eight feet, and tied along the wire. When once this is done there is no further trouble, except to pinch back the shoots in summer so as to keep them close and compact. This operation requires a little attention. The main stem, which is of course tied carefully but not too tightly to the wire sends out side shoots in the summer. When these are about four, or say from three to five inches long, they are to be pinched back, or in other words, nipped off, within about an inch of the base of the young shoot, in the case of apple-trees—in the case of pear-trees it should be left somewhat longer. This is for the summer pruning; in winter it may be necessary to go over the trees with a knife, and remove or shorten awkward spurs, or cut out dead bits here and there; but the summer pinching is the chief thing to be done in the matter. When the trees produce too plentiful a crop of fruit, these should be thinned when very young, so that those left may assume the splendid flavour and size which makes fruit grown in this way superior to that grown in the old and large tree system. I will now give you a list of the best kinds to use in this way, and which can be bought in any respectable nursery. Of apples the very best are Colville Blanche and Reinette de Canada, Cox’s orange pippin, Hawthornden, Herefordshire Pearmain, Greaves’ pippin, or any other first-class kind of apple. Of pears, Marie Louise, Winter Nelis, Beurré Diel, Jargonelle, Beurré d’Amanlis, and Joséphine de Malines, will be found very suitable for the dwarf bush or cordon style, as will most first-class pears.